A bit more than a month into the 2025 MLS season — the milestone 30th in league history — a number of surprise teams have emerged as the second enters its second month of play. Here are five that stand out, so far:

➤ Charlotte FC — Are coming off a 4-1 demolition of former U.S. national team coach Bruce Arena’s San Jose Earthquakes. Charlotte’s only blemish so far is a 1-0 loss to Inter Miami on March 9.

➤ Chicago Fire FC — Former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter might have this sleeping giant finally in its proper place among the league’s elite.

➤ Nashville SC — Former USMNT interim coach B.J. Callaghan has this team off to its best start since joining MLS, with its most impressive victory a 3-1 statement against …

➤ Philadelphia Union — The Union were coming off a 2024 season in which they failed to reach the playoffs, ending a six-year postseason streak. The team fired longtime coach Jim Curtin and hired former St. Louis City coach Bradley Carnell. Heading into 2025, soccer football pundits didn’t have high expectations for the Union. Well, they are the co-leaders in the Supporters’ Shield race with …

➤ Vancouver Whitecaps FC — While their fellow MLS Canadian clubs appear to be early Wooden Spoon candidates, the Whitecaps have been a huge surprise. The biggest shocker of all was a Concacaf Champions Cup upset of Liga MX powerhouse CF Monterrey.

MLS Matchday 6: What are this weekend’s games?

(All games available on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.)

Saturday

New England Revolution vs. New York Red Bulls, 2:30 p.m. ET
Toronto FC vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC, 2:30 p.m. ET
Colorado Rapids vs. Charlotte FC, 4:30 p.m. ET
Atlanta United vs. New York City FC, 7:30 p.m. ET
D.C. United vs. Columbus Crew, 7:30 p.m. ET
Inter Miami CF vs. Philadelphia Union, 7:30 p.m. ET
Chicago Fire FC vs. CF Montréal, 8:30 p.m. ET
FC Dallas vs. Sporting Kansas City, 8:30 p.m. ET
Minnesota United FC vs. Real Salt Lake, 8:30 p.m. ET
Nashville SC vs. FC Cincinnati, 8:30 p.m. ET
LA Galaxy vs. Orlando City SC, 10:30 p.m. ET
San Diego FC vs. Los Angeles FC, 10:30 p.m. ET
San Jose Earthquakes vs. Seattle Sounders FC, 10:30 p.m. ET

Sunday

St. Louis City SC vs. Austin FC, 2:15 p.m. ET (FOX)
Portland Timbers vs. Houston Dynamo, 7 p.m. ET

MLS game of the week: Inter Miami vs. Philadelphia Union

Date and time: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET
TV/streaming info: MLS Season Pass

It’s still very early in the season, but Saturday’s Eastern Conference showdown at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, features two of the top five teams in the current Supporters’ Shield standings. To the surprise of many, it’s the Philadelphia Union who are co-pacing the 30-team field through five games played. The Union’s hot start has been fueled by surprise early season Golden Boot candidate Tai Baribo, who leads the league with six goals.

Inter Miami is off to a strong start — as expected — and successfully navigating Concacaf Champions Cup play, too (speaking of which, they have a first leg of a quarterfinal in Los Angeles against two-time Champions Cup/League finalist LAFC on Wednesday). Lionel Messi only has appeared in two MLS games so far this season but has been a factor, scoring a goal and assisting on two others for undefeated Miami. Messi’s status for Saturday’s game is TBD.

Where can you watch MLS games?

All Major League Soccer games air on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. Some select games are available for free on Apple TV and viewers only need an Apple ID to watch.

In a major push to reach more viewers this season, Comcast Xfinity and DirecTV customers can subscribe and watch MLS Season Pass through the TV providers, while T-Mobile users will be able to access MLS Season Pass for free.

MLS betting odds: Who is favorite to win 2025 championship?

According to BetMGM, Inter Miami CF (+333) is the current favorite to win the 2025 league championship, followed by Los Angeles FC (+700), Vancouver Whitecaps (+1400), Columbus Crew (+1400) and New York Red Bulls (+1600).

MLS 2025 season key dates

May 6-7: U.S. Open Cup Round of 32: MLS teams enter the competition
May 14-18: Rivalry week
June 14-July 13: Club World Cup
July 23: MLS All-Star Game, in Austin, Texas
July 29-Aug. 31: Leagues Cup
Oct. 18: Final day of regular season (MLS Decision Day)

As Friday night bled into Saturday morning at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the final Sweet 16 game of what’s been a largely predictable 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament had one final thrill left for those who stayed awake to watch it.

No. 1 seed Houston and No. 4 seed Purdue were tied at 60 with 2.8 seconds remaining following a missed Cougars jumper that bounced off the hands of a Boilermakers player before going out of bounds. As officials gathered around the monitor — an agonizingly familiar sight for anyone who has watched enough college basketball this season — Houston coach Kelvin Sampson had a little extra time to draw something up that could deliver his team a dramatic victory.

What came out of the Cougars’ huddle didn’t disappoint.

Houston guard Milos Uzan inbounded the ball to teammate Joseph Tugler, who immediately dished it back to Uzan for a game-winning layup with 0.9 seconds remaining in one of the savviest baseline out of bounds plays in NCAA Tournament history.

While defenders in such situations are often warned to keep an eye on the inbounder, the brilliance of Houston’s play was that it got All-American guard L.J. Cryer coming off a screen to get open for a jumper on the other side of the basket from Uzan. That maneuver put Purdue All-American guard Braden Smith, who was guarding the inbounder along the baseline, in a tricky spot — he could either remain on Uzan and risk Cryer getting an open look to win the game or he could switch over on to Cryer and leave Uzan unattended.

He opted for the latter, with the Cougars picking up on it and getting a last-second victory that earned it an Elite Eight matchup Sunday with No. 2 seed Tennessee. With his late layup capping things off, Uzan finished the night with a game-high 22 points, which included a 6-of-9 performance from 3-point range.

The victory was Houston’s 29th in its past 30 games.

Here’s what Sampson had to say of the play in a post-game interview:

‘Obviously, when you’re calling stuff at the end of the game, it’s gotta be something you’ve worked on countless times. We’ve actually worked on that play yesterday,’ Sampson said. ‘We called it 51, and there are three different reads. They did a good job taking the first one, but we got to the second one and Joe made the right read with the step in. So great execution.’

Added Uzan in a postgame interview on TBS:

‘The play was for (L.J. Cryer). They guarded JoJo wrong, he slipped to the ball. JoJo with his high IQ, gave it right back to me, was able to make a play.’

And with that play, his team’s dreams of a national championship remain alive.

ATLANTA – Tom Izzo paced to the very end of the bench, almost to the tunnel at State Farm Arena, and drew a big breath as he watched Jaden Akins’ first free throw splash through the net. Then he whipped back to the edge of the coaches box near midcourt, spreading his legs and getting into as much of a defensive stance as a 70-year-old man can, pumping his right fist as the second one went down.

But not for his own sake.

Izzo wants another national championship, sure. He lives for the thrill of being there on the final weekend of the college basketball season, something he calls “one of the all-time great things in any basketball player’s life.”

But mostly, he just wants more time with this unique and resilient team. And after hanging on to beat No. 6 seed Ole Miss, 73-70, you can see why.

When you’ve been somewhere as long as Izzo has been at Michigan State, it’s dangerous to compare teams or players from different eras. As he joked Thursday, he’ll have Mateen Cleaves or Draymond Green hunting him down if he talks too glowingly about how much he loves this particular group.

Can you blame him, though?

In a transactional college basketball era where no relationship seems permanent, where assistant coaches often make less money than players and where so many of the program-building skills that made Izzo a Hall of Famer aren’t as relevant as they once were, this Michigan State team is a throwback.

It’s not overly athletic nor particularly skilled and not even as old as most college coaches want their teams to be constructed these days. Ole Miss had Michigan State beat on all three counts Friday.

But not on the scoreboard.

Because goodness, does Sparty fight – just the way Izzo likes it.

“We’re not a team that can just go out and play and win,” Izzo said. “And boy, we did a helluva job in the second half.”

With 12 minutes left, it didn’t look like it was going to happen. The Spartans were struggling to break the paint against an opponent that Izzo called “the most physical defensive team we’ve played in years.” They were kind of getting bullied on the glass, too. Ole Miss had controlled the game from the opening tip and just looked like the more complete team, poised to make the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.

And then? Well, in the complete absence of any other plan that was going to work, Michigan State’s guards just put their heads down and attacked. If it wasn’t Jeremy Fears it was Akins. And if it wasn’t Akins it was freshman Jase Richardson, who showed on a very big stage why he’s going to be a first-round NBA draft pick in a few months if he wants to be.

Yes, Richardson was 4-of-6 from the 3-point line on a night when his teammates were 2-of-11. But for a 19-year-old who isn’t even close to reaching his peak physical development to play as under-control with the ball, to be as fearless in traffic and to even come up with a couple of clutch rebounds late showed why this version of Michigan State has just a little more juice than recent Izzo teams.

“We weren’t being as aggressive as we should have been,” said Richardson, whose father, Jason, played on Izzo’s only national title team in 2000. “I feel like they were kind of just punking us in the beginning. We couldn’t get to the paint. Shooting decent shots, but not great shots. I think second half it really opened up for us. We were being more aggressive, getting downhill and getting driving kicks. I felt like we were at our best in that second half.”

And little by little, Michigan State reeled Ole Miss in, got back on even terms and then made every key play down the stretch. Whether it was Izzo getting great looks for his guys out of timeouts, nailing every clutch free throw and then getting the toughest bucket of the night from Akins off a broken play with 1:23 remaining to break a 63-all tie, it was vintage Sparty.

“I love these guys because they kept grinding,” Izzo said. “They kept grinding. I’m proud and happy for them. They’ve earned it. They deserved it. They did it.”

There’s no reason to believe Izzo is walking away anytime soon, but he may never get another chance like this to reach the Final Four. He hates the transfer portal, loathes what the business of college basketball has become and isn’t going to compromise what’s important just to get a player.

He’s coached long enough now that more sons of Spartan greats may be in the pipeline, but that’s probably not a great recruiting strategy. For Michigan State to get Izzo to one more Final Four, it’s going to have to be like this, wringing every ounce of ability out of a roster nobody else could coach this well.

But now they’re just 40 minutes from going back. And betting against Izzo when he’s got this kind of opportunity in his sights rarely works out well.

SPOKANE, Washington — Don’t sleep on UCLA.

I don’t mean don’t overlook them. That’s impossible to do when the Bruins are the overall No. 1 seed and have a first-team All-American in Lauren Betts. I mean don’t let your guard down even for a second.

Do it, and you’ll get an idea of what it feels like to be roadkill.

Ole Miss went toe to toe with UCLA for the first half Friday night, no doubt sparking ideas of another NCAA tournament upset by the Rebels. Two minutes into the second half, however, it was obvious UCLA is nothing like that No. 1-seeded Stanford team Ole Miss stunned two years ago.

Londynn Jones opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer, Kiki Rice scored on a driving layup and then drained a 3 after Betts kicked the ball out to her. Kharyssa Richardson stopped the run with a layup, but it was an interruption rather than a reprieve.

Betts made a pair of turn-around jumpers, Jones hit another 3 and UCLA could start game-planning for its Elite Eight game against LSU on Sunday.

‘It was the adjustments we made at halftime. We felt like we’re better than one point better than Ole Miss, and that was the score at the half,’ Kiki Rice said. ‘But we needed to come out and play our game, rebound the ball, take care of the ball, and just continue to follow the game plan.

‘But I think it was kind of a little bit of a mindset shift and just going out there, being tough.’

UCLA spent much of the season as the No. 1 team and has lost only two games, to crosstown rival USC. Betts is a big reason for that. Bruins coach Cori Close calls her a ‘generational player,’ and she’s not wrong.

Betts finished with 31 points against Ole Miss, and missed just one of her 16 shots. She also had 10 rebounds and three blocks.

‘I’m honestly pretty used to that at this point. She’s so dominant every day in practice,’ Rice said. ‘You guys don’t see it, but every single day she comes with the same consistency, and she’s just sogreat. So I think when we do get in games, it’s like throw the ball up to Lauren. She’ll score, get me an assist.

‘I’m so grateful to have her on my team and not be playing against her.’

But the Bruins aren’t a one-person team. Find a way to corral Betts, and Rice will pop off. Bottle her up, and it frees Jones to start raining 3s. Contain all of them and you probably have octopus arms. But it won’t matter because Gabriela Jaquez will eat your lunch.

What makes the Bruins truly scary, however, is how quickly they can pile up the points.

Just as Richmond did in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Ole Miss was doing everything right at the end of the first half. And then all of the sudden the Bruins took off, and the Rebels were left chasing a boulder downhill.

‘It all came off our defense, right?’ Close said. ‘When we’re able to get stops and rebounds, we’re able toexecute and make them play in space, and do some things offensively that are harder when we have to take it out of the basket and go versus their press and all of those things.

‘But it’s so huge. That’s why it turns so quickly, it’s turning defense into offense,’ Close added. ‘That’s really where we’ve got to hang our hats.’

And the truly terrifying part? The Bruins still have room to grow and improve.

Against Ole Miss, like Richmond, UCLA had spurts of dominance but didn’t sustain it for the entire game. But the Bruins know they’ll need to. The dominance they showed in the regular season was fine. But it won’t mean much if they’re watching the Final Four from their couches.

‘We started really well tonight and we had a really good third quarter. But can we have more poise and consistency in the middle of the fight?’ Close said. ‘Those are some things we got to respond to and get better.’

You’ve all been warned.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

Deion Sanders’ quest to play a spring football game against another team has been shot down by the NCAA, at least for this year.

NCAA rules currently forbid two teams playing each other in the spring. But the Colorado and Syracuse football programs applied for a waiver from the NCAA to play and practice against each other in April.

The NCAA’s Division I FBS oversight committee then met this week via videoconference and opposed the request, noting the late timing of it and how it would give the two schools a “competitive and recruiting advantage” to engage in activities that ‘no other institutions are permitted to do,’ according to the committee’s report on the meeting.

The committee noted most schools already have planned their spring practice periods or completed it.

Sanders, Colorado’s football coach, wanted to play Syracuse in Boulder April 19 on ESPN2. His team instead will play itself in an intra-squad game that day at Folsom Field.

Who’s on this NCAA committee?

The committee includes Illinois head coach Bret Bielema. Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks, Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes, Miami (Fla.) athletic director Dan Radakovich and former Wyoming coach Craig Bohl, among others.

It noted that a spring game between two teams also would lead to players missing class time.

“The committee agreed to discuss, during a future meeting, a concept that could permit joint spring practices in future seasons,” the committee’s meeting report said.

Sanders had said in a news conference this month that he wanted to spice up his annual spring game by playing somebody else instead of practicing against each other.

‘I would like to style it like the pros,’ he said. ‘I’d like to go against someone (in practice) for a few days, and then you have the spring game. I think the public would be satisfied with that tremendously. I think it’s a tremendous idea.’

Syracuse coach Fran Brown then responded to Sanders’ idea on social media by saying he would take his team to Boulder for three days.

The committee’s meeting report indicated the request included a joint-contact practice session, a joint-noncontact practice session and an 11-on-11 scrimmage.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

SPOKANE, Washington — Kailyn Gilbert was, by her own admission, getting cooked.

Zoe Brooks had made several tough shots and it sure looked as if the N.C. State star was about to make another with 90 seconds left Friday night. But when Brooks lifted the ball, Gilbert saw her opportunity.

“I was like, ‘I can’t let her get an easy look,” the LSU guard said.

The third-shortest player on LSU’s team, Gilbert leaped and gave the ball a mighty swat. It was only the second block of her career, and it saved LSU’s season.

‘When that play happened,” said the 5-foot-8 Gilbert, ‘I knew we were going to win the game.’

It might seem a given for LSU to be playing deep into March, the 80-73 win over N.C. State sending the Tigers to the Elite Eight for a third consecutive season. But until Gilbert’s block, LSU looked very much like a team bound for the offseason.

It had blown its six-point lead from late in the third quarter. Flau’jae Johnson couldn’t buy a bucket and was on the bench for the last five minutes of the game after getting raked across the eye. Mikaylah Williams, so clutch from 3-point range in the first two games of the NCAA tournament, couldn’t get one to drop.

The Wolfpack had LSU on its heels, and the Tigers knew it.

‘Nobody likes to lose, so I talked to my teammates in the huddle and told them we’ve got to take our matchups personally,” Aneesah Morrow said. ‘We have to be able to dominate, and we have to be able to make defensive stops. And we did that toward the end of the game.”

At 5-foot-8, blocks are not a regular part of Gilbert’s repertoire.

‘I could block shots,’ she said, smiling. ‘I just don’t choose to.’

But she wasn’t about to let Brooks, whose 21 points led the Wolfpack, score again. So she jumped and sent the ball flying toward the baseline. Teammate Shayeann Day-Wilson sprinted for the ball, snagging it right before it went out of bounds.

Day-Wilson fed Williams, who scored on a driving layup to give LSU its first lead, 74-73, since 8:25 left in the fourth, and now it was N.C. State’s turn to get cooked.

Sa’Myah Smith had another block on Brooks during the Wolfpack’s next possession, with Morrow grabbing the ball. Brooks fouled Smith, who made both shots to extend LSU’s lead. The Tigers threw the ball away on an inbounds play, but the Wolfpack couldn’t do anything with it, getting whistled for an offensive foul.

With just 15 seconds left, N.C. State was forced to foul and Williams and Smith each made a pair to seal the win.

‘We made plays down the stretch. We made some bad plays down the stretch, but we made plays down the stretch to pull it out and win,’ LSU coach Kim Mulkey said. ‘It means we did some good stuff.’

Led by Gilbert.

Gilbert spent her first two seasons at Arizona. When she came to LSU for a visit, Mulkey and assistant Bob Starkey sat her down and Mulkey was unflinchingly honest. She had no doubt Gilbert could contribute offensively.

If she didn’t improve her defense, though, she’d never see the floor at LSU.

Rather than resisting, Gilbert took it as a challenge.

‘I said, ‘You know what? I understand that culture. I’m willing to lock in defensively,’” she said.

Mulkey said she’s watched as Gilbert’s defense has gotten better throughout the season. For Gilbert to save a game with her defense, rather than her offense, it doesn’t get much better for a coach.

‘Like she said, she was getting beat off the dribble there. For her to make a defensive play, it’s only fitting that we talk about that in this game,” Mulkey said.

What makes March Madness so special is you never know who’s going to step up. Or how.

LSU didn’t need Gilbert’s offense against N.C. State. It needed her defense, and she delivered.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

BOSTON — Alysa Liu let out a shocked smile Friday night, as the crowd at TD Garden roared and the stuffed animals began to rain down on the ice.

Liu became the first American woman in nearly two decades to win a world figure skating title Friday, clinching history with a brilliant, poised performance to the music of Boston-born disco artist Donna Summer. After winning the short program portion of the women’s singles competition earlier this week, she won the free skate, too − sealing her place atop the podium with the final performance of the night.

Liu, 19, leapfrogged three-time defending world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan to win the gold with a total score of 222.97. Mone Chiba, who is also from Japan, took bronze, while Americans Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

When asked if she expected to be a world champion when she returned to competition last year, Liu laughed. No. No she did not.

‘Even yesterday, I didn’t expect this,’ she said.

It’s the first time an American woman has topped the world championship podium since Kimmie Meissner in 2006.

It’s not all that surprising that Liu made it here, to the pinnacle of her sport. It’s more the path that she took to get here − a winding, complicated journey that is all her own.

Liu started skating at 5 years old at a rink near her Richmond, California home, and it didn’t take long for her potential to be recognized. By the time she turned 9, according to NBC Sports, she was waking up at 4:30 a.m. for private training sessions. By 12, she was landing a triple axel − the most difficult jump in women’s figure skating − in competition. And by 13, she was already a national champion at the senior level.

In a sport that is constantly looking for ‘the next big thing,’ Liu certainly appeared to be it.

After competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where she was the youngest member of Team USA at 16, Liu proceeded to place third at the world championships. But with some of her main goals in skating behind her, she began to think about the other things she wanted from her life. In April of that year, Liu announced on Instagram that she was retiring from the sport and ‘moving on with my life.’

‘I really let the problems get to me a little bit more than now,’ Liu told Olympics.com, when asked about that 2021-22 season. ‘I don’t think I was able to process much of it as I was in it. But once I left, I really could see the full picture.’

After more than a year away, that full picture of skating started to prompt questions. Could she still do a triple jump? Could she run a program? Above all else: Did she want to do all of those things?

Last spring, Liu reached out to Phillip DiGuglielmo, who had coached her off and on since she was a kid. She told him she wanted to come back to competition. He said he poured a glass of wine and tried to talk her out of it.

‘I said, ‘Nobody’s done this. Nobody walks away and comes back,’ ‘ DiGuglielmo recalled. ‘Rachael Flatt tried. Gracie Gold tried. Lots of people try, because they love it. And that’s great. They’re not successful at it.

‘She just listed off all these reasons about why she could do it.’

So they got back to work, albeit with a different approach and, from Liu’s point of view, a new mindset. She felt empowered by her time away from figure skating, free of the ‘prodigy’ label, expectations and rigidity. If she wanted to do a morning practice session, she did. If she didn’t feel up to it, or overslept, then oh well. So it goes.

‘I have a lot of freedom,’ she said Tuesday. ‘You know how we hire the coaches? I really do feel like I’m kind of the boss of the coaches, which is weird. Because normally it’s the other way around, the coaches bossed you.’

‘It feels like there’s really no pressure,’ she added. ‘Like, I could just walk away if I wanted to. But for now, I don’t want to. So, yeah.’

In the pressure-packed environment at worlds this week, it was telling that Liu did a cartwheel before stepping onto the ice.

No American skater smiled more during the 2022 Olympics than Liu, who finished sixth but seemed most excited about the peach juice and souvenir options available in the Olympic village. She now seems even happier still.

‘ feel like her cheerfulness, her kindness and the way she’s always so happy brought her to this position on top of the podium,’ Sakamoto said through a translator. ‘In fact, if I would say something has changed, it’d be that she’s more bright, she’s more happy now.’

When asked about her journey at multiple points this week, Liu has made one thing clear: She has no regrets. About her youth career. About her decision to retire. And certainly not about her choice to return.

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t decide to retire for a little bit,’ she said Wednesday. ‘So I just am glad that I listen to myself and do whatever. Because it just works out in the end.’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tomschad.bsky.social.

This story has been updated with a new photo and to fix a typo.